There are recognizable patterns of ascent and decline. But our industrial civilization is so vast, it has such reach…
I look out the window. Something in the distance, limping toward the trees.
* * *
…
The door opens and Eli hurls himself at me. I help him peel some rubber cement off his hands, then he goes back to his game. This is the one that everyone likes. It is a 3-D procedurally generated world, according to my husband. Educational.
It’s fun to watch them play. They put together buildings block by block, then fill the rooms with minerals that they have mined with pickaxes they have made. They assemble green fields and raise chickens to eat. “I killed one!” Eli yells. “It’s almost night,” Ben tells him.
There are bills and supermarket flyers. Also a magazine addressed to a former tenant. The cover promises tips for helping depressive people.
What to say:
I’m sorry that you’re in so much pain. I am not going to leave you. I am going to take care of myself, so you don’t need to worry that your pain might hurt me.
What not to say:
Have you tried chamomile tea?
* * *
…
I let my brother choose the movie for once, but then it’s so stupid I can barely watch it. In the movies he likes there is always some great disaster about to happen and only one unlikely person who can stop it.
Afterward, we walk in the park. He’s met someone maybe. But he doesn’t think it’s going to work out. She’s too different from him. It takes me a while to figure out they haven’t even been on a date yet. “You don’t want to date someone like you, do you?” I ask him. Henry laughs. “God, no.”
In the first class I ever took with Sylvia, she told us about assortative mating. Meaning like with like—depressive with depressive. The problem with assortative mating, she said, is that it feels perfectly correct when you do it. Like a key fitting into a lock and opening a door. The question being: Is this really the room you want to spend your life in?
So I tell my brother how Ben and I never notice the same things. Like that time I came home and he was all excited because they finally took it down. Took what down? I asked. And he had to explain that the scaffolding that had covered the front of our building for three years was finally gone. And then last week, when I was telling him a story about the guy from 5C, he said, Wait, what drug dealer?
* * *
…
When I get home, the dog wants an ice cube. I give her one, but she keeps banging her bowl around the kitchen. “How was your day?” I ask Ben. He shrugs. “I coded mostly, did some laundry.”
There is a heroic tower of folded things on the table. I spot my favorite shirt, my least depressing underwear. I go into the bedroom and change into them. Now I am a brand-new person.
On her third day of marriage, Queen Victoria wrote: My dearest Albert put on my stockings for me. I went and saw him shave, a great delight…
My mother calls and speaks to me of the light, the vine, the living bread.
* * *
…
Seven a.m. and Eli is playing fetch. I take the slobber frog away, put it on top of the fridge. “We have to go! Get your backpack!” I tell him. The dog watches me warily, her head on her paws. I run a brush roughly through Eli’s hair. He winces and darts away from me. “We have to go! Put on your shoes!” I yell. Then finally, we’re out the door.
Mrs. Kovinski tries to tell me something about the elevators, but we race right past her. Ten blocks. I’m walking too fast, pulling Eli along with me. Wrong living, I know, I know, but it’s a long line at the office if he’s late.
A last sprint across the playground and we make it just in time. I’m out of breath, sweaty, sad. I kiss Eli’s head, trying to undo the rush. Why didn’t I have more kids so I could have more chances?
These other mothers knew enough not to have only one. There is a cluster of them over by the fence. They are speaking Urdu, I think. One of them smiles at me and I give a little wave.
How do I look to her? I wonder, in my drab clothes and fancy glasses. Last week, she donated a bag of silk fabric for the school raffle; it is red, stitched through with golden thread. Eli wants to win it and use it for a cape. I know how to write her name, but not how to say it.
* * *
…
This woman is a shrink. Also a Buddhist. She likes to practice one or the other on me, I’ve noticed. “You seem to identify down, not up. Why do you think that is?”
You tell me, lady.
On Tuesdays, she teaches a meditation class in the basement. It is open to the whole community, not just university people. I’ve noticed that Margot listens differently than I do. She pays attention, but leaves her own stories out of it.
It’s slow today so I help her set up for class. Cushions for the strong, chairs for the weak. “You should stay,” she always tells me, but I never do. Not sure where to sit.
* * *
…
Here is the midnight question for my husband: What is wrong with my knee? “I hear this little click when I’m walking. And there’s a twinge too sometimes if I take the stairs.” He is eating a spoonful of peanut butter. He puts it in the sink, then kneels down to examine me. “Does this hurt?” he asks, pressing lightly on the skin. “How about this? Or this?” I waggle my hand to indicate maybe it does, maybe a little bit. He stands up and gives me a kiss. “Knee cancer?” he says.
One good thing about being addicted to sleeping pills is that they don’t call it “addicted”; they call it “habituated.”
* * *
…
Funny how people will lecture you about anything these days. This one on the library steps is going on and on about my ham sandwich. “Pigs are more trainable than dogs! Cows understand cause and effect!” Who asked you anyway? I think, but I leave and eat it at my desk.
But the man in the shabby suit tells me things I want to know. He works for hospice. He said that it is important when a loved one dies to try to stay alone in the house for three days. This is when the manifestations occur. His wife manifested as a small whirlwind that swept the papers off his desk. Marvelous, marvelous, he said.
* * *
…
There’s a sign on our elevator saying it is out of order. I stand there looking at it as if it might change. Mrs. Kovinski comes into the lobby. They’ll let anyone be super now, is her theory. Anyone.